'Tis the season of joy, the season of giving, the season to celebrate.

With your support and encouragement, cell and gene therapies for cancer continue to be at the forefront of innovation in the treatment of this deadly disease.

We hope you will continue to support this groundbreaking research. Every donation, at any amount, brings us closer to treating and defeating cancer. Donate now.

Nabil Ahmed, MD

Baylor College of Medicine

ACGT Researchers Rely On Your Donations

"ACGT's grant came at a very critical time when we could not secure funds to implement this trial. These valuable funds were indeed key to jump starting this trial and helped us secure further funds later on to complete the trial.

ACGT has clearly shown insight to funding a series of researchers seeing clinical development of their promising work when other sources had declined."

In just the last few months alone, there is much to celebrate. Many new discoveries await us in 2016. Be part of the progress!

IMMUNOTHERAPY DESTROYS LEUKEMIA

Dr. Michel Sadelain and Dr. Carl June

The successful use of T-cell therapy, using modified genes to trigger an immune response, continues to generate headlines. ACGT supported immune-mediated treatments in its infancy by funding leading pioneers,
Dr. Carl June, University of Pennsylvania and
Dr.Michel Sadelain, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, among others, and the field is rapidly proving more and more successful.

At the American Society of Hematology meeting last week, more positive results were cited. Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, headed by Dr. June, revealed that 95% of 53 children with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) achieved complete remission, and 95% of patients with the more deadly form acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) also were in remission. Learn more.

In China, a patient whose life was close to its end was completely cured of leukemia by stimulating the immune system using T-cell therapy. In the first study of its type in China, all cancer cells quickly disappeared.
Read more.

In England, a one-year old was successfully treated for ALL also using genetically engineered cells to stimulate the immune system. This "miraculous" treatment, which used modified donor T-cells had previously been tested only on mice. The little baby girl is completely cancer-free thanks to combining the new technology of gene editing with immunotherapy. Read more about the treatment.

VIRUSES ATTACK CANCERS

You've heard about it on the news and even on television shows: viruses, often thought of as disease agents, are the ground troops in the war on cancer. Oncolytic viruses, (OV) are first synthesized to remove disease elements and once inserted back into the body move rapidly to the tumor, where the immune system recognizes the threat and attacks cancer cells.

The FDA recently approved the use of the immunotherapy drug nivolumab, (Opdivo) to treat advanced kidney cancer. This drug, and a similar one, Keytruda, had been previously approved for melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer.

Keytruda is the drug former President Jimmy Carter credits for his full remission. Read more.

IN MEMORIAM

Our friend and esteemed ACGT Research Fellow, Eckhard Podack, MD, PhD, research scientist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami, passed away in October. He will be sorely missed for his thoughtful approach, innovative thinking and determination to eradicate cancer.

Dr. Podack received a 2006 ACGT Investigator Grant for promising research into immunotherapy treatment for lung cancer. His work will live on and save lives.

AMAZON SMILES ON ACGT

Your purchases this holiday season and throughout the new year on
Amazonwill help us further unlock the tremendous potential of cell and gene therapies for cancer. Go to smile.amazon.com and select Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy as your charity, then shop.

ACGT is the only non-profit organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to funding cell and gene therapies for cancer. Since its founding in 2001, ACGT has awarded 46 grants of over $25 million in North America, and continues to be a catalyst for cell and gene therapy research.

100% of all donations are used to support ACGT research grants and studies in cell and gene therapies for cancer.